"Nine timber-doodles and five quail,
and only one shot missed! That's not bad shooting, considering what a
hole it is to shoot in. Gentlemen, here's your health," and filling
himself out a fair sized wine-glassfull of Ferintosh, into the silver
cup of his dram-bottle, he tossed it off; and then poured out a similar
libation for Tim Matlock. Tom and myself, nothing loth, obeyed the hint,
and sipped our modicums of distilled waters out of our private flasks.
"Now, then," cried Archer, "let us pick up these scattering birds. Tom
Draw, you can get yours without a dog! And now, Tim, where are yours?"
"T' first lies oop yonner in yon boonch of brachens, ahint t' big
scarlet maple; and t' other--"
"Well! I'll go to the first. You take Mr. Forester to the other, and
when we have bagged all three, we'll meet at the bog meadow fence, and
then hie at the bevy!"
This job was soon done, for Draw and Harry bagged their birds cleverly
at the first rise; and although mine got off at first without a shot, by
dodging round a birch tree straight in Tim's face, and flew back slap
toward the thicket, yet he pitched in its outer skirt, and as he jumped
up wild I cut him down with a broken pinion and a shot through his bill
at fifty yards, and Chase retrieved him well.
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